


Ring In The New

by lamardeuse



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-28
Updated: 2010-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:18:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I feel awfully good," Rodney said.  "Awfully, awfully good."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring In The New

**Author's Note:**

> For Zoë Rayne

“I feel awfully good,” Rodney said.  “Awfully, awfully good.”  His half-empty plastic mug of champagne tipped dangerously as he waved it back and forth in time with the music.

“I bet you do,” John replied, plucking the mug from Rodney’s benumbed fingers and setting it on the railing of the balcony.  Behind them, the mess hall rang with laughter and drunken singing.  He thought the lyrics were in German, but he wasn’t sure.  The language seemed to change with every verse.  

In front of them stretched the endless sea of Atlantis’ world.  Their world.  Home.  

There were times when John really liked the Pegasus galaxy, and this was one of them.

Rodney gradually listed to port until his left arm was pressing heavily against John’s right.  John shifted his weight to his left foot to keep them both upright.  “‘Sbeautiful,” Rodney slurred, waving his free arm at the black and silver ocean and the spangled night sky.  “‘Sbeautiful, doncha think?”

“It’s beautiful,” John agreed softly.  

Rodney shifted against him, and John had to push back hard to keep from toppling.  “Oh God, I’m so drunk,” Rodney breathed.

“If you’re gonna puke, do it that way,” John said, pointing to his right.  He’d dragged Rodney out here when he saw him turn a little green after his sixth shrimp canapé and his fifth mug of champagne.  

“I never puke,” Rodney said solemnly, as though swearing a sacred oath.  “If I could manage the gallons of Siberian horse piss I drank during my time in the gulag, I can certainly handle a few glasses of Mumm’s.”

John just smiled at that and resumed his study of the stars.  He’d been a little nervous when he’d seen them unload crate after crate of booze from the _Daedalus’ _hold on their last run in anticipation of New Year’s, but as it turned out there wasn’t any reason to worry.   When you picked the best of the best of the best, drunken brawls were about as rare as tapdancing cows.

Not that there wasn’t a lot of drunken…other stuff…going on, especially among the people who’d been here from day one.  He was pretty sure he’d seen Weir and Zelenka necking over behind a potted palm, and Simpson had been making a determined play for Novak all evening.  It was amazing what people could manage when they were able to hide behind the mask of alcohol, as though courage were something that needed to be excused.  

Beside him, Rodney took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  

“You going to be okay?” John asked.

Rodney stood up straighter, and John found he missed the warm pressure along his bicep.  

John looked over at him when he didn’t answer.  There were tears shining in his eyes.

“Hey,” John murmured.  He remembered seeing that face as the transporter doors closed, stricken and pale, like John had casually taken away one of his limbs.  

It had shocked the hell out of him to learn he mattered that much to Rodney.

Rodney shook his head, blinking rapidly.  “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s nothing.  I’m just getting to the sentimental portion of the evening.”

“Yeah, champagne will do that to you.”

“It’s not the champagne,” Rodney snapped.  “Well, yes, all right, it is the champagne, but it’s not…it’s this damned _place _and God, you know, I wanted to do this when I got back to Earth, just get hammered and forget it all for a while, but you can’t, because every time you try to celebrate it feels _obscene_, as if you’re gloating because you survived.”

And John got that, he did, and he felt kind of bad that he was surprised Rodney got it too.  “That’s because you are gloating,” John said.  “But it’s not directed at the people who died, it’s directed at the Wraith, at – whatever you want to call what’s up there trying to pull the strings.”

Rodney snorted and wiped at his eyes with the back of a broad hand.  “Is that your religion?  The Church of Pinocchio?”

“It’s as good a one as any,” John said, smiling back.  “And it’s easy to spot the heretics.”  He held a hand out about a foot in front of his nose to demonstrate.

Rodney snorted again.  “Not to mention they burn a lot better.”

John laughed.  “You are one sick fuck, Rodney.”

“I’m drunk,” Rodney said primly.  “I can say whatever I want.”

“Like you need an excuse for that.”  Then John thought about the scene inside.  “What about doing whatever you want?”

Rodney’s expression turned puzzled.  John jerked his head back toward the mess hall.  “You could finally make your move, like Zelenka.”

Rodney’s eyes widened.  “On—who?” he squeaked.

John shrugged.  “On anyone.  Like you said, you’re drunk.”

Rodney stared at him for another moment, then leaned against the railing and shook his head.  “I’ll never be _that _drunk,” he muttered.

John sighed; he hated to think of Rodney giving up a chance for happiness in the middle of all this uncertainty.  “Look, I’m not exactly Miss Lonelyhearts, but this isn’t really a place for—hesitating about stuff like that.  If you’ve found someone you want, I say go for it.”

John felt Rodney stiffen beside him.  

Inside the room, the countdown started.  

_Ten…_   
__   
_Nine…_

John jabbed Rodney with an elbow when he made no move to go back inside.  

_Eight…_

“C’mon, Rodney,” he said,

_Seven…_

“—no time—”

_Six…_

“—like the present.”

_Five…_

Rodney turned to him, his gaze shadowed, determined, as though girding himself for battle,

_Four…_

and John sucked in a breath, air chilling his teeth,

_Three…_

because holy shit, he really never _did _see this coming,

_Two…_

and he opened his mouth to say as much,

_One…_

but before he could, Rodney murmured, “You’re right,”

_Happy New Year!_

and leaned in to kiss him under the gaze of new, watchful stars.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
The funny thing was, John didn’t start thinking this was a bad idea until his pants hit the floor, and he’d only had three sips of champagne, enough for the toasts but no more, certainly not enough for this to seem like a _good _idea up to now.

He opened his mouth again to speak, this time determined to get his point across, but when he opened his eyes Rodney wasn’t in front of him any more.

And then he felt a warm, gliding touch to his thigh, and he looked down.

“Oh,” John said stupidly, because Rodney was now on his knees (Jesus) and nuzzling the front of John’s boxers like an inappropriately affectionate puppy.  “There you are.”

Rodney hooked the fingers of both hands in the waistband of John’s last remaining piece of clothing and tugged gently, baring his hips.

“Okay, um,” John said, but that was as much as he could remember, and then he didn’t really give a shit any more, because hello, tongue.  On.  His.  Cock.

“Just following—” Rodney murmured between licks “—your advice.”

“Since when have you ever fol—” another lick stole John’s breath for a moment “—not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

Rodney’s mouth was occupied at the moment, so he didn’t bother to answer, just kept slowly driving John right out of his mind, and then his agile hands glided down over the cheeks of John’s ass and squeezed hard, and okay, that was a fantasy John hadn’t ever anticipated having.

“Oh, Christ, come on,” John rasped when he was five seconds from coming, “wait, wait.”

Rodney released him with an X-rated _popping _noise that made John whimper.  “Wait?” he demanded, sounding pissy as always.  “Wait for what?” but John’s hands were already grabbing at his shoulders and tugging, and after a second Rodney got the idea, surging to his feet and kissing John blindly, like he’d been starving for this for months, years.  The thought that Rodney had been denying himself something for that long—hell, for more than five minutes—was shocking.  The thought that he’d been denying himself _John_…well, that was hotter than hell.

“Don’t want to do this on my own,” John heard himself say, and Rodney moaned into his mouth like he’d just said something filthy, and then he realized what it sounded like.  He brushed his mouth against Rodney’s ear and panted, “Together, okay?  Together.”

He felt Rodney nod frantically, stubble scraping against his cheek, and then he was shoving John back onto his mattress.  John let himself fall, bouncing once before Rodney’s body blanketed his, before Rodney’s weight and heat covered him, anchored him.  Rodney’s fingers tangled with John’s, sliding loosely, and John gasped at the unexpected intimacy of that simple gesture.

“Kiss me,” he ordered, and Rodney complied more readily than he’d ever complied with anything, not that John minded.  Reluctantly he freed his hands so that he could finish stripping Rodney’s clothes off his body, and then there was nothing between them and Rodney’s skin was hotter than a furnace against his own.  John tried to touch him without burning himself, but Christ, it wasn’t easy, because every part of Rodney felt like it was on fire.  As Rodney ground himself against John’s hip, he made small, needy noises in the back of his throat that didn’t sound like him at all, and suddenly the thing that had excited John so much a minute ago was unbearable to the point of pain.  

_I didn’t know_, he wanted to say, but that wasn’t true, because in some ways he’d known, or at least he’d felt it too, an unfamiliar pull that he’d resisted for as long as he could.   He thought he must have had good reasons for fighting it, but right at this moment he couldn’t think of a single damned one, because Rodney was _hurting _here, and that wasn’t anything John wanted to be responsible for.

“Let it out,” John begged him, hands stroking Rodney’s back in random patterns he hoped were soothing, were enough.  “Just—it’s okay now, you can let it out, please, Rodney, Jesus, just—”

And Rodney shuddered and cursed and pressed his forehead into John’s shoulder and then he sucked in a sharp, rasping breath and produced a sound that was halfway between a shout and a sob, and then he was coming, God, he was coming and John hadn’t even touched him, and John shoved up against Rodney’s solid, hairy thigh a few desperate times before following him over.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
It was close to dawn when Rodney’s eyes opened with an almost audible _popping _sound.  They widened to bug-eyed status when he registered where he was.

“Happy New Year,” John drawled.  

Rodney sat up and stared down at John in horror.  “Oh my God, I’m going to puke,” he breathed.

John waggled his eyebrows.  “You romantic devil.”

“I was drunk,” Rodney said, holding the words in front of him like a shield.

“I was sober,” John retorted.  “But I think I was the one taken advantage of.”

It finally seemed to hit Rodney that he was naked, because he grabbed at the sheets and tried to gather them around himself.  John reached up and yanked them away from him.

“Don’t,” he whispered.  “You survived, Rodney.  _We’ve _survived.  And it’s okay.”

Rodney stared at him for a long moment, and then it seemed as though every muscle in his body relaxed at once.  A tentative flame of hope appeared in his eyes.

“Yeah?” he asked, one corner of his mouth twisting upward.

“Yeah,” John said, pushing himself up on one elbow as Rodney leaned down, “it’s very okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> First published December 2005.


End file.
